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TOKYO — A Japanese minister and more than 100 other lawmakers visited the Yasukuni shrine for
war dead yesterday, prompting China to accuse Japan of undermining ties and trying to overturn the
post-World War II order.

China summoned Tokyo’s ambassador in Beijing to express its anger, and South Korea also
criticized the lawmakers’ action.

The visits, marking an autumn festival, came a day after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made
his third ritual offering to the shrine since returning to office last year, though he did not
visit it in person.

Abe has stayed away from the shrine in central Tokyo, where war criminals are honored along with
other war dead, to avoid further straining ties with China and South Korea, both victims of Japan’s
militarism before its surrender in 1945.

“The Yasukuni shrine is a symbol and spiritual tool of Japanese militarism,” Chinese Foreign
Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in Beijing.

As well as Japan’s war dead, Yasukuni also honors Japanese leaders convicted as war criminals by
an Allied tribunal, making it a painful reminder to nations that suffered from Japanese aggression
in the 20th century.

Internal Affairs Minister Yoshitaka Shindo was the most senior of about 160 lawmakers to visit
the shrine to mark the festival, which runs until Sunday. A deputy chief cabinet secretary also
went.

“I visited the shrine in a private capacity,” Shindo said, noting that his grandfather is
honored there. “I do not think this should become a diplomatic issue.”